Darien Gap

[StuckTojo]

Hello:

This is probably moderately silly - and certainly only of fleeting concern to the majority of games, but here it is anyway.

I’m playing a game at present, and for the first time I’ve noticed that the Darien Gap is not represented on the map, unlike other unpassable areas, like the Pripyat Marshes for example.  For those unfamiliar with the Darien Gap here is an article on this natural barrier between Panama and South America:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28756378

I mean, really, this is the first time I’ve EVER played a game where there is an exchange of fighting back and forth between Central America and Colombia, so it’s not like this is some pressing concern.  Interesting yes, but pressing, certainly not.

It just seems to me that tanks, mechs, infantry, etc. pass through the Darien Gap with the same ease as if they were driving a prairie Highway on a Summer day, and that’s just not right.

Would requiring transports to ferry land units around the gap be a good idea for a future house rule, or would it just be a silly and unnecessary attempt to make the game more historically accurate?

Any thoughts?

Yes, it’s a slow day at work….  :-D

[CWO Marc]

@StuckTojo:

It just seems to me that tanks, mechs, infantry, etc. pass through the Darien Gap with the same ease as if they were driving a prairie Highway on a Summer day, and that’s just not right.

In my opinion, an even greater absurdity is the concept that a canal – even whn it’s represented on a map – doesn’t affect land movement: “A canal is not considered a space, so it doesn’t block land movement. Land units can move freely between Trans-Jordan and Egypt. Central America, containing the Panama Canal, is one territory, so no land movement is required to cross the canal within Central America.”

[taamvan]

B) unnecessary…

A real war simulation would have you fighting in the direction of the orientation of the watershed, in any war history from civil war-Napoleonic-up to ww2 era, crossing rivers is the biggest obstacle (besides mountains, which for armies, are impassable and contain few proper battlegrounds.)

“as the crow flies” distances are not that relevant for armies–esp. during the Battle for France and Market Garden, the whole story of what objectives have to be taken is based on the orientation various rivers and what bridges/fords are available.  In order to go East, you may first have to go North, since any continental-scale well-known river isn’t passable without major engineering works and cannot be forded, anywhere.

You would have to bring your own bridges and pontoons and DUKWs and just like food and fuel aren’t a consideration in “strategic” level simulations, neither are “region-sized” terrain obstacles.  Since tanks and heavy guns take even more infrastructure, as does your supply line, even a few bridges wouldnt’ necessarily be enough to put a fully ready brigade on the other side, and even if it were, you may have to cross another river only 50-100km away, and oriented in the wrong direction for the way you want to be heading.

Same weather.  Its just another added complication that in a game would only tend to slow the game down and diminish the possibility for action, unless you are fighting a hex style game of the AH era, then, you are in your element, roll for supply problems, roll for raputista, roll for flooded meuse river as your shermans approach…

These concepts just don’t fit that well in a game where the action is world-wide, as weather is transient and not global…treating terrain in different ways isn’t all that conducive to the type of mobility game being played either…in Axis and allies we have land, coastal land, islands, and sea, that’s all you get.

You could add all these things in, the Pennisular Civil War campaign wouldn’t be interesting without rivers and swamps as that was the whole battle in that situation, but that’s also a regional, theatre simulation.

The Aleutian islands are islands…you do need a Tport to cross to Alaska…

[Caesar-Seriona]

Most of the board do not cover actual gaps the allied navies had to face. For example, while Germany has submarines in the correct sea zones at the start of turn 1, the actual Bomber Gap which is a famous gap between UK and US where U-boats operated because allied fighters needed carriers in order to operate in this area is not actually covered in the game.